Chemicals

How interesting people are. And what a contrast it makes for my day. We have been getting a lot of questions during the past couple weeks about spray schedules for fruit trees. Most people are having one of two problems: they have peach leaf curl (a fungal disease) on their peach trees, or they have had "wormy" fruit in the past and want to prevent it this year. Both of these are recurring problems for fruit trees, whether home orchards or commercial, and getting good quality fruit requires treatment/prevention of the pests.

We have a multi-page publication that discusses home fruit pest control in depth, which we use as a reference and send out frequently. The publication covers both conventional and organic pesticides. What makes it interesting is that sometimes we have people come in who have absolutely no fear or concern about chemicals. We had one man this afternoon who was so upset about no longer having access to certain more harsh chemicals that he wanted to get a pesticide applicators license so that he could buy and use them.

(Certain chemicals that are available for homeowner use are sometimes removed from the market and become "Restricted Use," meaning that only those who have passed a written test and are certified applicators can purchase and use them. This is usually done because it is found that the active ingredient is a possible carcinogen, has effects on reproductive systems, or has widespread negative effects on birds or aquatic life. Not bad reasoning, you probably agree...)

Anyway, this particular man was very upset about not being able to use these restricted pesticides on his tomatoes and other plants. I have no evidence, but I have a feeling that this man is not going to follow the labels when they say what plants they may be safely used on if something he used to spray is no longer on the list. Ugh. I'm not afraid of chemicals like this, but you have to have a healthy respect for them and follow the labels.

Then we get the people who come in asking for an organic control for their pest problems. And there's nothing wrong with that. It is perfectly fine to prefer to use fewer synthetic chemicals. However, what these people want is a way to prevent all fungal and insect problems without using any chemicals. I hate to burst anyone's bubble, but "Organic" produce does not mean that it is pesticide-free. It doesn't even mean that it is synthetic chemical free. A lot of the organic allowed pesticides are actually synthetic formulations of naturally occurring compounds, which is why they are allowable under organic production systems.

Anyway, needless to say, the people that don't want to use chemicals really just don't want to spray anything at all. They are less than pleased that there is no way to protect their fruit without spraying, and take a lot of convincing.

I guess the second type of person is the one I prefer, because their choices are much less harmful in the long run...except possibly to the fruit tree that may be over-stressed by the myriad of diseases and insects that it must combat. The first type of person really cannot be convinced, even with education, that they should be more judicious in their use of chemicals. The second type of person is usually open to education about the products, they just have some misunderstandings about chemicals and what the proper role of pesticides should be.

I have to be honest that I don't particularly like spraying pesticides, but it does depend on what chemical I'm using. It helps me when I know what my active ingredient is, what the mode of action is, and what side-effects, if any, there are. Unfortunately, it's kind of a challenge to get the average homeowner to the point where they understand those things.